appearance of calm himself. ‘As far as the police are concerned, this is a murder case, pure and simple. No connection with intelligence work would be admitted by the prosecution, I’m sure, and if the defence tried to drag it in, there’s always the resort of in camera proceedings. Of course, I can’t speak for what might happen if the killer were brought to trial abroad.’
‘Then let’s do our utmost to see if we can prevent that.’ Bennett’s tone was dry. ‘Please continue.’ He nodded to Vane, who squared the file on the desktop before him, as though ordering his thoughts.
‘I’ll start by giving you some background,’ he said. ‘Of necessity, this must be limited to what I believe you need to know. I assume it comes as no surprise to either of you that the Foreign Office should be involved in intelligence gathering. Traditionally, this has always been so, even now when a secret service exists in departmental form. I was earmarked for this work a while back and in recent years Germany has become my special area of responsibility.’ He paused, as though picking his words with care.
‘There are various sides to intelligence gathering, but I’m referring now to just one of them: a category of persons whom we use to acquire certain kinds of information and to carry out particular assignments. Agents, in short-or spies, if you prefer – professionals who are expert in the field of espionage and employed for that purpose. The British services have at their disposal a number of such men – and women. They’re engaged mainly to carry out functions of a questionable nature that no diplomat or other government official could afford to be associated with.’
Again he paused, this time to raise his eyes to theirs.
‘I regret to have to tell you that the man you’re seeking is one of these.’
‘An agent employed by this country?’ Sinclair wanted to be clear on the point. Vane nodded.
‘Would you give me his name?’ Seeing the other hesitate, the chief inspector spoke quickly. ‘I warn you now you have no right under any law to withhold it.’
‘No, it’s not that. You don’t understand.’ Vane shook his head. ‘Of course I’ll give you his name. But which? He’s gone by so many. To us he’s known as Wahl, Emil Wahl; that’s how he appears in this file.’ He tapped the folder before him. ‘But his real name is Gaston Lang. That’s what he was christened.’
‘Lang, you say?’ Sinclair opened his notebook. As he reached for the pen in his pocket, he saw Vane shake his head.
‘Write it down if you wish, Chief Inspector, but it’ll do you no good. Of all the names Lang might be using now, I can assure you it’s the one he’ll never go by again.’
‘He’d been working for us for many years by the time I met him-that was in the summer of 1929. But his association with our intelligence branch goes back to the war, and it’s important you know how this came about.’
Vane eyed his two listeners.
‘At that time British intelligence had an outstanding agent working for them, a Swiss called Ernst Hoffmann. He was based in Geneva and through him and his various contacts and sub-agents we were able to obtain an extraordinary amount of valuable information from inside Germany. Lang was his secretary.’
Vane frowned.
‘We knew little about him. Apparently he grew up in an orphanage. Nevertheless, in spite of what could only have been the most limited schooling, he’d managed to catch the eye of Ernst Hoffmann and by the time our people got to know him he’d mastered several languages as well as other skills which his employer must have deemed necessary for his education.’
His raised eyebrow hinted at a meaning not apparent in his words.
‘Hoffmann was an art dealer, by the way: it was a genuine business, and he used it as a cover for his other activities. He was already working for us before the war and during that period he used Lang as a courier and go- between to keep contact with his agents in Germany.
‘So he was well-placed to help us when war broke out, but in 1917 he died – quite unexpectedly, he had a heart attack while sitting in a cafe – and Lang was left to take over his work. With gratifying results, at least as far as our people were concerned. Hoffman’s death had thrown them into a panic and they were only too pleased to discover that this young man was able to carry on in his place, and just as effectively.
‘However, about a year later, in the spring of 1918, he turned up without warning in France and made his way to the British sector of the front, in the north, where he reported to our intelligence branch. He had a curious tale to tell. He said he’d been identified as a British operative by German counter-intelligence agents in Switzerland who had succeeded in falsely incriminating him with the Swiss police. He’d only narrowly escaped arrest and had managed to slip across the border clandestinely into France.’
‘Incriminating him?’ Sinclair seized on the word. ‘As a spy, do you mean?’
Vane shook his head. ‘He was being sought for murder. The victim was a young girl.’
‘Good lord!’ Bennett couldn’t contain his astonishment.
Beside him, the chief inspector’s eyes had narrowed. ‘And they believed him? These so-called intelligence officials?’
Vane shrugged. ‘It would have been difficult, if not impossible, to check the truth of his story. The world of agents, of spies, is a murky one at best. It wouldn’t have been the first time one of them had been discredited in this manner. And the war was still going on, remember. He told them more. He said there’d been an attempt made on his life engineered by these same Germans in conjunction with two Swiss detectives who were in their pay. After a struggle he’d managed to escape, leaving one of the detectives dead. Stabbed. He carries a knife.’
‘So now there were two murder charges against him.’ Sinclair could hardly trust himself to speak.
Vane saw the look on his face. ‘Try to understand how the situation must have appeared to our people. The war was being fought as fiercely as ever. No one guessed it would be over in a few months. Lang had brought a great deal of valuable information with him. He was the only person who knew the details of Hoffmann’s network in Germany. The names of his agents. At that particular moment he was of immense value to the Allied cause.’
‘So? What happened?’
‘Lang disappeared. He was never heard of again. Emil Wahl, a citizen of Belgium, appeared in his place.’
‘With all the proper credentials, I suppose?’
Again Vane shrugged. ‘I can only repeat, this was a special situation. These things wouldn’t happen if wars weren’t fought.’
‘No, Mr Vane, I must correct you.’ The chief inspector’s voice was tight with anger. ‘These things wouldn’t happen if certain people did not choose to place themselves above the law. What those men did was condone one crime and commit another. It’s a disgraceful story. Disgraceful, do you hear me?’
Bennett gestured with his hand, trying to calm his colleague. But Vane showed no disposition to take offence. Rather, his rueful shrug seemed a tacit acceptance of the verdict delivered. With a sigh, he went on.
‘At this point I should mention that although Lang had worked for us in a number of European countries, because of this wartime episode – or his version of it – he’d never been posted to Germany. However, after a dozen years the danger of exposing him again to their counter-intelligence section was felt to have diminished, and he himself raised no objection to being sent there.
‘It was decided to bring him to London first, something which had never happened before, but a sign, if you like, of the value that was placed on his services. In certain quarters, at least.’ Vane’s face was expressionless. ‘Our first meeting was at a restaurant with others present and I took the opportunity to fix a second appointment with him. This would be for the briefing he would need before setting off for Berlin. Since I didn’t want him appearing at the Foreign Office, and since I was about to go on holiday anyway, I arranged for us to meet outside London.’
‘Had he been in England long?’ Sinclair had recovered his poise. ‘I’d like to get some idea of his movements.’
‘I gathered he’d been here for several weeks and had visited different parts of the country. He’d wanted a holiday before taking up his assignment. I can’t tell you where he went, but I know he’s a birdwatcher – it’s in his file. He’s something of an expert, I believe. It’s one of the few things we know about him.’
‘Thank you.’ The chief inspector inclined his head. ‘You were saying you’d fixed a second meeting with him?’
Vane nodded. ‘I’d arranged to stay with these friends of mine outside Oxford, and since I was due to travel north myself on the seventh, I’d settled with Lang that we should meet the day before. He’d agreed to take the train up to Oxford and said he planned to spend a night or two at an hotel there before returning to London. I picked him up at the station and took him to a pub in Woodstock where I’d booked a private room for lunch, and where I
